EasyJet has apologised to passengers left stranded for 30 hours before a
flight from Egypt to Britain.

The Sun reports that 164 passengers, mostly British, were forced to stay on board for five hours when Thursday's scheduled 5pm take-off from Sharm El-Sheikh was delayed.

The temperature approached 30C (86F) before those on board - including pregnant women, babies and pensioners - were let off and put up in a hotel, they claimed.

The flight was rescheduled for Friday morning, moved back to 7pm - and then a late engineer delayed its departure until 10.40pm, the newspaper said. It finally landed at London Gatwick at 4am yesterday.

Passenger Luke Gayle, 20, of Croydon, south London, told the newspaper: "It was a disgrace. People were crying and understandably losing their tempers while we were stuck on the tarmac.

"A woman six months pregnant lay across three seats. It was roasting hot and there was no food. The captain had to come out and try to calm everyone down - and again in the airport next day.

"No one was allowed free phone calls to alert their families, which I gather is easyJet policy."

The airline said in a statement: "easyJet can confirm that flight EZY8854 departing Sharm El-Sheikh to London Gatwick on 27 June experienced an overnight delay due to a technical issue with the aircraft.

"We would like to apologise to our passengers for any inconvenience or distress caused by the delay and assure them that we did all that we could to minimise the disruption.

"The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is easyJet's highest priority and the aircraft's departure was delayed while inspection and repair procedures were followed on the ground.

"All passengers were transferred to accommodation where every effort was made to ensure that they were comfortable and kept informed as to the flight's rescheduled departure time on 28 June and notified that they were able to make up to two telephone calls free of charge. We apologise if there was a delay in any of those passengers receiving this information on arrival at the hotel.